UTSA, Texas St. renewing rivalry in football

UTSA and Texas State players will face each other again — as they did in 2012 — beginning in 2017 after school officials reached a new eight-game agreement.

Photo: Kin Man Hui / San Antonio Express-News

SAN ANTONIO — Ever since UTSA started an athletics program in 1981, some of its most heated competitions on the courts and fields of play have come against the Texas State Bobcats.

That's why it was hard for some fans to understand why UTSA and Texas State couldn't get together to schedule games in football after their one and only meeting as members of the Western Athletic Conference in 2012.

The game attracted 39,032 fans to the Alamodome, and then, just as suddenly, it disappeared as UTSA and Texas State went their separate ways in different conferences.

Working for the past seven months to rectify the situation, athletic director Lynn Hickey at UTSA and Larry Teis at Texas State hammered out the details of an eight-game series that will start in 2017.

The Roadrunners and the Bobcats announced Friday that they will play four games each on their respective home fields during the duration of the deal, which covers 2017 and 2018 and then the 2020-25 seasons.

After knocking off Texas State 38-31 at the Alamodome in 2012 in only its second year of football, UTSA finally will make the return trip to San Marcos on Sept. 23, 2017.

Hickey said that “it's great for the fans — both sets of fans — to have a good game where everybody can get to it. It's accessible.

“I think it's just outstanding, and I think that because of that we can really develop a rivalry in football, just like we've always had in all those other sports.”

Teis said he's excited to see the game make a comeback.

“Our first game at UTSA drew nearly 40,000 fans in 2012, and both schools realized the importance and benefits of playing one another,” Teis said.

Teis thanked Hickey for her efforts in getting the deal done.

“Our fans like to have home games against other schools from Texas, or marquee FBS programs from around the country,” he said.

The UTSA-Texas State game fell off the schedules at both schools beyond the 2012 season when the Roadrunners joined Conference USA at the same time the Bobcats went into the Sun Belt.

Hickey explained that starting in 2013, “we had all our games in place” in nonconference for several years.

“When we started the program, we had to show (the NCAA) that we had a number of FBS games (on the schedule),” she said. “In some cases, we were even over-scheduled.

“We had to do a buy-out of one game at Kansas State, so we just didn't have space (to schedule Texas State). It wasn't that we were avoiding them.”

Late last year, Hickey announced her intentions to forge a “long-term” deal with Texas State. But she said it might not happen for six or seven years.

As it turned out, Hickey made it happen in four years.

To do that, she said UTSA and Colorado State agreed to erase two dates off a four-year contract in 2017 and 2018.

UTSA promptly linked with Texas State for 2017 and 2018 to start the new deal.

Midland native Jerry Briggs has lived in San Antonio for most of the past 50 years. He graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in 1973 and attended San Antonio College and the University of Texas at Austin, where he received a journalism degree. Since 1977, he has worked in daily newspapers as a sports writer and editor. After spending six months at the Shreveport Journal in Louisiana, he moved back to San Antonio in 1978 to take a job at the San Antonio Light. A week after the Light closed in 1993, Briggs was hired at the Express-News. His beats as a San Antonio-based reporter have included high school football, Spurs basketball, Missions baseball, the 1996 Olympics and, currently, UTSA Roadrunners football. Briggs worked for 10 years as an editor in the Express-News sports department, coordinating coverage of the Big 12 and local colleges, before moving back into the field as a senior reporter in 2011.